William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, directed by College fourth-year Evelyn Walker, opened Thursday evening. The comedy follows the disputes of a divided pair of brothers, a woman disguised as a man, and a complicated entanglement of romances. After only a month of rehearsals, the director, cast, and crew have prepared an impressive show that celebrates the humor and joy of the play while highlighting the queer undertones of its plot.

As You Like It is Walker’s first full-fledged production as a director. Because she only had a month to prepare the play, she and her cast spent a good chunk of their summers preparing and studying the script.

“A lot of the process was working through how to perform Shakespeare, and there [are] a lot of different ways to go about that,” Walker said. “I wanted it to feel a little bit more accessible and modern, so we leaned into figuring out how to make the cadence of the speech feel reachable for an audience at Oberlin.”

One of the big challenges of directing Shakespeare is ensuring that actors can understand their lines and perform them naturally. College second-year Avery McKirahan plays Orlando, one of the leads. This production is McKirahan’s first time performing one of Shakespeare’s plays. 

“Throughout high school, I don’t think Shakespeare was taught very well, so I didn’t really like reading [it],” they said. “Then, reading As You Like It, close reading it, definitely made me appreciate the language so much more. It is really funny because of the language, because of all of these puns and plays on words.”

College third-year Cal Avins worked as costume designer for the production. Like the cast, he also read As You Like It carefully before designing the costumes. 

“A costume designer does a lot of things on a show, but first of all, they interpret the script and  the director’s vision so that they can translate that interpretation on stage to the audience,” he said. “My job as a costume designer is to create visuals that make people feel what you and the director decide.”

Beyond analyzing and interpreting the text, Walker and the cast also worked to emphasize the physicality of their performance. 

“I’ve found that I’m a physical director,” Walker said. “I’m always up with [the cast], moving them, and encouraging them to get into their bodies, which I think helps with the text and making sure that it’s understandable. It’s a very musical text, so a lot of the actors have that rhythm in their bodies now, and they’re able to really work with it.”

A unique feature of this production is its musicality. A three-person orchestral pit overlooks the stage, its sound illuminating the show with a magical, melodic quality. 

“The music aspect of the show is so unique, and obviously, we have dancing in it as well,” McKirahan said. “It’s a very joyful show and I think that people should … know that it’s a show to laugh at. It’s a show to have fun.”

Avins similarly emphasized the show’s lightheartedness. 

“With this production of As You Like It, we were going for a classical folk vibe,” Avins said. “That’s something that Evelyn, the director, gets a lot of joy out of. I think this production for Evelyn is first and foremost about joy.”

Shakespeare has been performed over and over again for centuries. This raises the question: What relevance do his plays have in this modern age and Oberlin?

“The way Shakespeare[an] language is constructed gives it a lot of feeling,” McKirahan said. “That kind of understanding of language, as a tool to convey emotion, has definitely diminished within a modern context.”

In addition to the show’s language, the plot plays with gender in a way that is pertinent to Oberlin’s queer culture. 

“It’s a really fun way to explore queerness specifically because it is about a woman who dresses up as a man to woo a man,” McKirahan said. “Because Oberlin is such a queer school, I’m most excited to share that part of the story with an audience.”

Walker chose to direct As You Like It in part because of its gender complexity. She also chose it because of its themes of transience. 

“One of the big themes of the show is how community and theater are similar in that they are really beautiful, but also fleeting,” Walker said. “That feels really appropriate as I am [completing] my senior year here — sort of like a goodbye to Oberlin.”

Plays like As You Like It triumph joy. Through a uniquely Oberlin lens, this show serves as a reminder that joy can be an act of resistance. As You Like It is playing Oct. 2 through Oct. 5 in Kander Theater and tickets can be purchased online through Central Ticket Service.